


Recovering

by gladdecease



Category: Star Trek: The Original Series
Genre: Amnesia, Community: cliche_bingo, Episode: s02e03 The Changeling, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2009-08-08
Updated: 2009-08-08
Packaged: 2017-10-14 04:37:37
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 595
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/145458
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/gladdecease/pseuds/gladdecease
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Her first memory today is not the first one she had a week ago, and she will never get that back.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Recovering

**Author's Note:**

> In watching TOS on my iPod, I learned that you can't stop in the middle of a long video and expect to return to it where you left off. I gave up on the episodes I'd been in the middle of--the finale of S1 and two in the middle of S2--and only returned to them (on my computer, this time) after I'd gotten to the end of S3. And "The Changeling" freaked me out. This is, incidentally, one of the reasons why I hate shows that you can watch out of order without noticing a thing. This should have had an effect on her life.

The first thing she remembers is a thing in front of her, a thing over there, and a thing behind the thing. The things had colors, but she didn't know their names. There were ways to describe the things, but she had forgotten them. There were sounds, but she couldn't understand their meaning.

This is not the first thing she remembers after the incident, or after the attack, or after... whatever you want to call it. It isn't after _anything_ ; there is no before. This is the first thing she remembers.

She knows now that the things were Nomad, Lieutenant Sulu, and Lt. Commander Scott. She knows, abstractly, that Nomad wiped her brain of knowledge. That she was like a baby for a few long hours. (Worse than a baby, really, because a baby knows it needs help, and can at least cry out for it. She had stood in place, staring blankly at nothing.) She knows, from asking him, that Mr Scott attacked Nomad for attacking her, and died. She knows, from speaking to others since, that Mr Scott was a friend, that he was a gentleman, and that he would defend any woman in danger.

But she doesn't feel it.

She knows that she should have felt more - fear, when faced with the machine that had emptied her brain. Concern, when Mr Scott died trying to protect her. Sadness, that he died. Anger that he died for nothing. Relief, when he was "repaired".

Instead, nothing.

Doctor McCoy is quite the genius scientific mind. Yet, for all his genius, he is surprisingly unintelligent in some areas.

Nomad called what he did "erasing knowledge". The good doctor was reassured; knowledge can be replaced easily enough. And it can. She's as good a communications officer now as she ever was before, according to her subordinates. The people from Starfleet Intelligence that contacted her after the mission reports went through replaced more information for her. She's continuing the job she had with them before, secretly and successfully.

But while knowledge to Nomad was all things a person can know, knowledge to Doctor McCoy was facts. Her knowledge base has been replaced, but her memories have not.

She received a long-distance pre-recorded subspace message yesterday, from a person she did not recognize, who spoke to her with a familiarity she no longer had with herself. Comparing the image recorded along with the message to holoimages and prior communications, she discovered the person was her mother.

She couldn't remember her own mother. She felt shame at this thought, but not sadness.

Starting today, this will change. Before, she kept a frequently updated personal log. If she goes back far enough, she will find her first day on this ship. Maybe her first day on any ship. And she will listen to them all. She will relearn herself.

But first, the answer to a question that has been with her since the beginning: _why_ did Nomad wipe her brain? Pulling up the codes to access the bridge visible record, she goes back to a minute before the... to a minute before, and watches.

She watches herself sing. When the video reaches the things that she knows, she pauses it. She hums a note.

It sounds nice. She does it again. She sings "ah", she sings "la" she sings "do re mi", she sings words. Nonsense words, strung together to match the sounds she wants to hear.

She wants to hear it. She likes to sing.

She does like to sing. She _does_.

She sings again, and begins to relearn herself.


End file.
